Dan's Blog – December 2009 Archive (30)

A bizarre holy man has been arrested on child torture charges after horrified parents found him stamping on their youngsters' throats to cure them of colds. Self-proclaimed demi-god Jamun Yadav, 50, told police his holy Hindu powers allowed him to transfer divine energy from the soles of his feet. He said the amazing feets of magic allowed him to fight all illnesses in Katihar, eastern India. "This is… Continue

Sam Elliott, the American actor, has depressed Philip Pullman, the atheist author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, with his claim that a group of Roman Catholics managed to browbeat Hollywood producers into abandoning plans to film any more of his books.

"It's disgusting, but only the sort of behaviour I expect of these people," the best-selling author says of the campaign Catholics in America waged against The Golden Compass, the… Continue

Slap to religious freedom in Switzerland leads to threat over church bell tower in Turkey.

ISTANBUL, December 15 (CDN) — In response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims this month went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower, according to an advocacy group.

Every year after Thanksgiving, most people’s thoughts turn to Christmas. It is the time when professing Christians are supposed to focus on Jesus Christ. After all, it is the “Christ-mass” season!

Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, holly wreaths, decorated trees, mistletoe, season’s greetings, seasonal music, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” and Santa Claus are all associated with this holiday. These all bring warm feelings to those… Continue

Movie star and Mike Huckabee booster Chuck Norris has dragged the "War on Christmas" into the health care debate.

Norris has penned an article in which he suggests that Jesus Christ would have been among many "great souls" who would have been "erased from history" had a health plan similar to the one proposed by the… Continue

SAN FRANCISCO - Scientists have witnessed the eruption of the deepest submarine volcano ever discovered, capturing for the first time video of fiery bubbles of molten lava as they exploded 4,000 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean in what researchers are calling a major geological discovery.

A submersible robot witnessed the eruption during an underwater expedition in May near Samoa, and the high-definition videos were presented Thursday at a geophysics conference in San… Continue

To help Hispanics overcome fears of participating in next year’s census, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) distributed to more than 7,000 churches posters depicting Mary and Joseph traveling to Bethlehem … to take part in a census. NALEO claims this really did happen, citing Luke 2:1-4, which talks about Jesus being born during a census ordered by Caesar Augustus. Historians have questioned this biblical account, and some Christian leaders are… Continue

It’s no secret that conservative Christians dominate the U.S. military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it’s time to worry. The author meets a group of soldiers who aren’t having it.
By Christopher Hitchens
WEB EXCLUSIVE December 15, 2009

One Monday in May, I was setting off from Washington to Colorado Springs, home of the United States Air Force Academy. I had kindly been invited by the academy’s… Continue

I replied with the following article as a link~DanWere the Nazis Atheists?
Atheists were to blame for Nazism according to the Catholic bishop of Augsburg, Walter Mixa. Mixa warned of the dangers of rising atheism in Germany on Sunday, saying that the Nazi regime was an atheist one. In reality, it is simple to prove Mixa’s statement is a dangerous and… Continue

Researchers have revealed the first images from the Caribbean sea floor of what they believe are the archaeological remains of an ancient civilization. Guarding the location's coordinates carefully, the project's leader, who wishes to remain anonymous at this time, says the city could be thousands of years old; possibly even predating the ancient Egyptian pyramids, at Giza.

Hundreds of pictures of men in women's clothing have been posted online by Iranian opposition supporters in mockery of what they say is a crude attempt by the authorities to humiliate and discredit a reformist student leader by photographing him in a head scarf and chador.

The student, Majid Tavakoli, was arrested after he gave a speech urging fellow students at Amir Kabir university to reject "tyranny," in protests which swept the… Continue

LANCASTER, Pa. – Police in central Pennsylvania arrested an Amish man on drunk driving charges over the weekend after he was found asleep in his moving buggy. Police said a 22-year-old man was slumped over and asleep in a slow-moving buggy on Sunday night.

An off-duty officer from nearby reported seeing the horse pulling the buggy at a walking pace as it straddled the center line.

Police said a breathalyzer test snowed the man's blood-alcohol… Continue

MOSCOW MILLS — Russia's highest court has upheld a ruling that halts the activities of a regional branch of Jehovah's Witnesses and bans dozens of its publications.

In September, a court in Rostov-on-Don had outlawed the group's activities in the region, seized its assets there and labeled 34 of its publications extremist. The Russian Supreme Court upheld the ruling, court spokesman Pavel Odintsov said Tuesday.